A federal judge ordered the North Carolina Board of Elections on Monday to certify the results of the state’s Supreme Court election, dealing a significant win to Democrats in the hotly-contested race.
The ruling certifies Democrat Allison Riggs as the winner of the state Supreme Court race against Republican Jefferson Griffin. Monday’s ruling found that thousands of contested ballots in the November contest must remain in the final count.
Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Myers – who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019 – agreed with Riggs and others who argued it would violate the U.S. Constitution to carry out recent decisions by state appeals courts that could remove potentially thousands of ballots for overseas military and their family members who were not required to attach a copy of their photo IDs, as well as ballots for a category of “Never Residents,” or U.S. citizens with family ties to North Carolina who have never lived in the United States. Myers wrote that votes could not be removed six months after Election Day without damaging due process or equal protection rights of the affected residents.
Myers ordered the State Board of Elections to certify results that, after two recounts, had Riggs as the winner — by just 734 votes — over Griffin.
Fox News reports:
“The State Board SHALL certify the results of the election for Seat 6 based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period on December 10, 2024,” Myers wrote, denying Griffin’s petitions for judicial review and injunctive relief.
More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in what has been the nation’s last undecided race from November’s elections.
Myers said the “case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals.”
Myers wrote that Griffin’s formal protests after the election, which were rejected by the State Board of Elections, constituted efforts to make retroactive changes to the voting laws that would arbitrarily disenfranchise only the voters who were targeted by Griffin. Griffin’s challenges over voters not providing photo identification only covered at most six Democratic-leaning counties in the state.
“You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers wrote in a 68-page order. “Permitting parties to ‘upend the set rules’ of an election after the election has taken place can only produce ‘confusion and turmoil'” that “‘threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves,'” he added.
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Since this is a State election, does the federal judge even have jurisdiction? And ID law is ID law. If not complied with, it is against the law. I know that it is all the fad these days for people to not follow the law, but this is really not an option here. Some funny things going on here in NC. They elect President Trump, and it is difficult to find supporters of liberal causes. In fact, most people are opposed to them and I live in a left leaning county. Anyway, the weird thing is that President Trump gets elected, and ANOTHER Democratic Governor gets elected. And a Dem AG, and the Supreme Court magically flips to liberal. But you cannot find anyone that actually voted that way. Yes, ID laws are ID laws. Laws need to be followed. 60,000 votes without ID is a game changer, and I bet it would change other elections also. And it is EXTREMELY easy to see how whole small towns in NC have completely changed demographics in the last four years. But they are not supposed to vote, are they?